1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a copier, facsimile apparatus, printer or similar image forming apparatus of the type developing a latent image electrostatically formed on an image carrier with a developer consisting of a liquid and toner dispersed therein, transferring the resulting toner image to a recording medium, and collecting the liquid left on at least one the image carrier and an intermediate transfer body after the image transfer to thereby effect cleaning. More particularly, the present invention relates to an image forming apparatus capable of separating the collected developing liquid into solids including the toner and a liquid and recovering only the liquid.
2. Discussion of the Background
It is a common practice with an image forming apparatus of the type described to simply discard a collected developing liquid because it contains toner which cannot be recovered. Particularly, in an image forming apparatus using developing liquids each containing toner of particular color, it is difficult to reuse the liquids because the collected liquid contains toner of different colors. Wasting the collected developing liquid is undesirable in consideration of limited resources.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication Nos. 7-209922, 7-152254 and 7-239615, for example, propose to use a dense, viscous developing liquid having a relatively high toner content for the miniaturization of a developing device or to apply, before development using such a developing liquid, a prewetting liquid to an image carrier. The prewetting liquid is a chemically inactive, dielectric liquid having a parting ability. The problem discussed above is also given rise to when use is made of the dense, viscous developing liquid alone or in combination with the prewetting liquid.
Technologies relating to the present invention are also disclosed in, e.g., Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication Nos. 5-11623 and 5-27657 and Japanese Patent Publication No. 6-90587.